Here’s my 5 minute take on the SharpE alternative desktop environment for computers running Microsoft Windows (XP or higher). SharpE has great configuration, looks great, incorporates many of the best features of alternative shells (widgets, virtual windows, etc.), is skinnable, and is free. See it in action!

Remember when footers in websites used to be tiny text with links to XHTML and CSS validation and some legal disclaimers? It seems lately that more and more sites are switching a decent chunk of site navigation to expanded, multi-column footers. They range from banal, minimalistic, functionalist (musiciansfriend.com) to highly graphical. In many cases the footer becomes a graphical signature of equal importance to the site headers at the top (webdesignerwall.com and blog.spoongraphics.co.uk, notably), stylistic punctuation to your browsing experience.